National Treasury Research Articles

The grant system of financing the South African local government sphere: Can sustainable local government be promoted?

Local government is considered to be government closest to the people. It is usually the third level or sphere of government in most countries. South Africa is divided into three spheres (not levels). Each sphere is distinctive yet interdependent and interrelated with the other spheres. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 provides for the allocation of functions and powers to each sphere, but prohibits one sphere of transgressing onto the area of jurisdiction of another sphere. The total geographic area of the country had been divided into three categories of municipality viz. category A (metropolitan), category B (urban) and category C (district). The dilemma faced is that nearly 60% of the population is urbanised. Since the end of the apartheid government’s era municipalities were merged into non-racial municipalities including large rural areas comprising relatively poor communities which cannot make any or only a limited financial contribution for the services they receive. The result is that municipalities have to rely on grants from the national government to provide basic services such as water, electricity, refuse removal and sanitation. The article addresses the justification for the allocation of grants to the various categories of municipality. It then explains the various kinds of grants and attends to the question of whether municipalities could provide sustainable services if they have to rely on grants. The article is mainly a desktop research project relying on documentation from official reports from, e.g. the Auditor-General and National Treasury, relevant legislation, other policy documents and literature were also consulted. A qualitative research approach is followed.

Pruning the Money-Tree to Ensure Sustainable Growth: Facilitating Sustainable Development Through Market-Based Instruments

There is growing global recognition that market-based instruments (MBI), such as environmentally-related taxes, levies and user-charges, are viable tools for facilitating environmental management and, ultimately, sustainable development. These instruments seek to correct market failure to value, or accurately value, environmental goods and services that consequently lead to environmental concerns being accorded insufficient consideration in everyday market activities. South Africa has introduced various MBI, largely in the form of environmentally-related taxes pertaining to mining, agriculture, electricity supply, water supply, waste water discharge and various products such as fuel and plastic shopping bags. The primary rationale underlying the introduction of these instruments has been revenue generation. Government has, however, acknowledged that MBI have potential to achieve other objectives, namely to mould human behaviour, encourage more efficient resource use and improve actual environmental outcomes.In an effort to facilitate further debate on the issue, the National Treasury recently published a draft policy paper titled A Framework for Considering Market-Based Instruments to Support Environmental Fiscal Reform in South Africa. The Draft Policy Paper reflects a significant shift in fiscal policy and provides four broad tax reform options that could contribute towards meeting both fiscal and environmental objectives, namely: reforming existing environmentally-related taxes and charges in the transport and solid waste sectors; introducing new environmentally-related taxes in the electricity and waste water sectors; reforming legal aspects of non-environmentally-related taxes with perverse environmental incentives and creating incentives to improve environmental outcomes. This article briefly considers each of the above options set out in the Draft Policy Paper by focusing on the following questions: Why has there been a shift toward the use of MBI to achieve environmental outcomes? To what extent are they used currently in South Africa? What are the options for extending their use in South Africa? What are the prerequisites for their successful implementation?

Corruption War, Trial Carnivals and Molebi Theory

The Buhari government has made war against corruption a fundamental component of its agenda for national rebirth. Since the administration was invested in May 2015, it has waged a relentless and persistent war on corrupt government functionaries of previous administration(s). This study was designed to examine the implications, the mechanisms, the contradictions, the dynamics and politics of Buhari's corruption war. This study investigated the socio-political dimensions of this war and the role(s) of national institutions. It adopted a descriptive design using a cultural construct, Molebi theory, to examine, analyse and interrogate the carnivalization of the trials of the suspects. This may not be a new phenomenon, but the energies and creativity that go into it these days showed a political trend that is capable of turning suspects' trials into a circus. The Molebi theory is used to identify and interpret the cultural creed which serves as a mantra of mobilization in support of politicians who are benefactors to their respective families and political associations. A nation that is lamenting a systemic dysfunction in its polity as a result of brazen and chronic prebendal and primitive accumulation should not in any circumstance raise an altar for the celebration of corruption by dancing to court in aso ebi in support of a rogue politician that is being tried for looting of the national treasury. The carnivalization of the trial of a rogue politician diminishes our values, insults our sensibilities, pollutes our cultural space, destroys the foundation of our polity and encourages communal scrambling for the endless gulping of our common wealth.

«Book depository, idols and paintings»: Princes Yusupovs’ book collection

The article gives a brief characteristic of the Yusupovs’ book collection. The eighteenth century was the time when collecting got very popular in Russia. Book collections became the main part of the Russian aristocratic society collection and formed private rich collections. The library of Yusupovs’ princely family is an example of such book collection. The study of this matter involves certain difficulties because Yusupovs’ library was divided into several parts and kept in different palaces and country estates in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Spasskoe-Kotovo, Arkhangelskoe, Rakitnoe. It is known that Yusupovs’ library has consisted of about 60,000 of books, 400 of them belonged to the earliest Russian printed art. B. G. Yusupov and his wife I. M. Yusupova set up the traditions of book collecting. The Yusupovs’ library has enraptured his contemporaries. A. S. Pushkin visited this library. His monument was raised in Arkhangelskoe in the poet’s name. N. B. Yusupov inherited his grandfather’s interest in dramatic and music art, and replenished the collection with rare musical editions and claviers. He went down in history as a vice-director of the Imperial Public Library, its patron and the donator. Moreover, he wrote a book about the Yusupovs family history. Felix Yusupov inherited the writer’s talent from his grandfather N. B. Yusupov, and wrote two books. Studying the history of Yusupovs` book collection gives an idea of book and bibliographic culture development throughout the mid XVIII - early XIX centuries. Nowadays the library in Arkhangelskoe has a significant book collection, which is considered to be Russian national treasury.

How Could the Pension Funds Adjudicator Get it so Wrong A Critique of Smith v Eskom Pension and Provident Fund

In this case note the judgment in the Smith case is criticized for being inconsistent with the landmark ruling in Volks. It is argued that the Adjudicator ought to have remanded the matter in Smith to the Board and ought to have ordered it to re-examine its discretion with a focus on a set of factors. Some of the negative effects of Smith on the pension funds industry are also outlined. While the authors express their understanding that the Adjudicator's decision in Smith was made with the rights of women in mind, they believe that her reasoning was wrong. She may have arrived at the same decision on different reasoning. In order to prevent the negative effects of Smith on the pension funds industry, it is recommended that the Adjudicator, when given an opportunity, should overrule the precedent set in Smith. Failure to do so would create the risk of the inconsistent application of the term "spouse" under South African law, or at the very least in relation to acts of Parliament administered by the National Treasury, which may potentially violate the equality provisions of the Constitution.

An analysis of the applicability of the OECD Model Tax Convention to non-OECD member countries: The South African case

Most tax treaties (including South Africa's) are based on the OECD Model Tax Convention on Income and Capital and the related Commentary (the 'OECD Model'). Notwithstanding the uncertainty surrounding its legal status, the courts in many countries use the OECD Model in the interpretation of their tax treaties. The OECD launched an action plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting ('BEPS') in 2013, which is aimed at improving international tax cooperation between governments. In South Africa, the importance of combating BEPS is highlighted by the fact that the Davis Tax Committee has appointed a sub-committee specifically to address concerns pertaining to BEPS. South Africa's participation in the BEPS project and its tax treaty negotiations with other countries, especially OECD member states, are of the utmost importance to South Africa's National Treasury. Consequently, it is the primary objective of this article to analyse the applicability of the OECD Model to non-OECD member countries, with particular emphasis on South Africa. It will be argued that, if the treaties of non-member countries are in conformity with the OECD Model and no specific position has been taken, the non-members also accept the provisions of the Model and the Commentary as an interpretative aid.

Interesses financeiros e captura do Estado no Brasil

RESUMO O trabalho explora a avaliação de (Bresser-Pereira, 2007) de que a política macroeconômica brasileira exprime a captura do Estado por uma coalizão de interesses rentistas e financistas, que também influencia a regulação financeira. Para tanto, analisa duas agências de relacionamento com investidores, do Banco Central e do Tesouro Nacional, e uma agência de promoção de investimentos formada por reguladores e regulados. Argumenta que essas agências estreitam a comunicação e canais de formulação de políticas entre reguladores e regulados; atestam a influência das instituições financeiras nas decisões de políticas públicas; e corporificam convergência de interesses entre investidores financeiros e Estado. Conclui avaliando que a tesa da captura da política macroeconômica é plausível e deve ser pesquisada de modo sistêmico.

Synthesis and biological evaluation of (E)-cinnamic acid, (E)-2-styrylthiazole and (E)-2-[2-(naphthalen-1-yl)vinyl]thiazole derivatives

Rhodes University for a bursary (E. O. O) and Rhodes University and the South African Medical Research Council (MRC) for generous financial support. This research project was supported by the South African Medical Research Council (MRC) with funds from National Treasury under its Economic Competitiveness and Support Package. The xCELLigence Real-Time Cell Analyzer SP Station was supported through the National Research Foundation (NRF) - Department of Science & Technology (DST) Research Infrastructure Support Programme (National Nanotechnology Equipment Programme) grant.

From the Klondike to Berlin: The Yukon in the First World War

The Northern Review 44 (2017): 9–30The participation of the Yukon in the First World War is a neglected part of northern history. For four years, the people of the Yukon, young and old, men and women, from all walks of life, became actively involved. A quarter of the population enlisted and fought in many of the major battles of the war; many came back as heroes, while others never came home at all. Those who remained at home were heavily committed to King and Empire. Women of the Yukon volunteered for service, raised funds for the war effort, and became socially active in such causes as prohibition and suffrage. Yukoner Joe Boyle distinguished himself in Russia during the war by financing a machine gun battery of fifty men, then volunteering to save the crown jewels and national treasury of Romania, negotiating an international treaty between Russia and Romania, and establishing a spy network. Robert Service, the Bard of the Yukon, volunteered as an ambulance driver and later penned the best-selling book of poetry of his long career. Individual acts of courage led to two men from the Yukon receiving the Victoria Cross, and many others receiving other honours. George Black, the commissioner of the Yukon, volunteered for service, bringing 250 Yukon men with him to the battlefields of France. Martha Black, his wife, accompanied him and became a mother figure to the men overseas and a Yukon goodwill ambassador. Many acts of commemoration and remembrance followed the war. This article is part of a special collection of papers originally presented at “The North and the First World War” conference held May 2016 in Whitehorse, Yukon.https://doi.org/10.22584/nr44.2017.002

A roadmap framework for solar aided power generation in South Africa

Technology roadmaps are critical for decisions pertaining to technology development. They have been utilised in the renewable energy sector to assist in filtering alternative technology options in order to support energy policy formulation, energy security and energy independence, among others. However, solar aided power generation is a recent concept and no roadmap has been developed for the technology as yet. This paper thus reviewed the literature related to roadmapping with the aim of understanding the methods and tools that have been utilised in other settings. Informed by the literature, a conceptual framework was developed, which was further utilised for the initial analysis for developing a roadmap for solar aided power generation in South Africa. Generally, it would be beneficial for South Africa to integrate solar aided power generation within its current Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) or the National Treasury Public-Private Partnership (PPP) programme. However, it should be noted that this is only feasible in the short- and medium-term. In the long-term, there is a need to support stand-alone solar thermal technologies.

A roadmap framework for solar aided power generation in South Africa

Technology roadmaps are critical for decisions pertaining to technology development. They have been utilised in the renewable energy sector to assist in filtering alternative technology options in order to support energy policy formulation, energy security and energy independence, among others. However, solar aided power generation is a recent concept and no roadmap has been developed for the technology as yet. This paper thus reviewed the literature related to roadmapping with the aim of understanding the methods and tools that have been utilised in other settings. Informed by the literature, a conceptual framework was developed, which was further utilised for the initial analysis for developing a roadmap for solar aided power generation in South Africa. Generally, it would be beneficial for South Africa to integrate solar aided power generation within its current Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) or the National Treasury Public-Private Partnership (PPP) programme. However, it should be noted that this is only feasible in the short- and medium-term. In the long-term, there is a need to support stand-alone solar thermal technologies.

VAT Concept on Place of Use or Consumption – The Case of Kenya

The determination of the place of use or consumption of services for VAT purposes has been a subject of contention for years in Kenya. A major issue is that, due to a lack of clarity in the Kenyan VAT legislation, taxable persons feel that tax authorities do not distinguish between “performance” and “consumption” when implementing the destination principle. Against this background, the author addresses the need, in general, for Kenya to adopt international best practices in line with the OECD International VAT/GST Guidelines. In particular, this article aims to enhance the discussion on the need for place-of-use or consumption guidelines in Kenya, by highlighting the practices in other jurisdictions as well as the challenges faced by the business community. It is also expected to be a useful guide for the National Treasury and National Assembly as they review the draft Kenyan VAT regulations.

O Brasil na vitrine da Fifth Avenue: A atuação do Escritório de Informações Brasileiras nos EUA 1935 – 1945

The following article analyzes a series of publicity initiatives launched in the US by the Getulio Vargas government (1930-45), and particularly the authorities linked to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Labor, Industry, and Commerce, upon the perception of Brazil’s lack of visibility abroad. The aim of these initiatives was to create a climate which would foster Brazilian interests, whether in terms of trade – with a focus on the expanding of export guidelines, affected by the 1929 crisis – or politics, as a weapon in the struggle with Argentina for regional leadership. To this end, a range of bodies sought to promote Brazil in the US, including diplomatic representatives, foreign information bureaus, sections of the National Coffee Department, and committees from the National Treasury, among others. This article analyzes the initiatives rolled out by the Brazilian Foreign Information Bureau in the spreading of publicity on Brazil in the United States, mainly by means of the publication of Brazil Today magazine.

Analysis of the Critical Success Factors of Integrated Financial Management Information Systems in Selected Kenyan Counties

This study sets out to analyze the critical success factors of integrated financial management systems in selected county governments in Kenya. The study focused on the following objectives: perceived benefits, top management commitment, change management, human capital development and technological infrastructural development as success factors for IFMIS implementation at county governments. A descriptive survey was adopted targeting 135 county employees who use IFMIS in selected counties. The research sample size consisted of 45 county employees in Kiambu, Bungoma, Machakos, Nairobi and Nakuru counties. The study involved finance departments of two counties with significant financial wastage and 3 counties with good financial records. The sampling technique used was snowballing sampling technique which involved 45 participants. Questionnaires were the main tool for data collection. A pilot study was conducted using 10 IFMIS employees in Mombasa County. It enabled the researcher to improve on reliability of the instrument used and familiarize researcher with data collection process. Data obtained was both quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative data was coded and keyed into an SPSS package for statistical analysis. The study revealed that change management, technological infrastructure, human capital development and top management commitment are all critical success factors in adoption of IFMIS in county governments. The study recommends that for IFMIS implementation to be very effective and efficient in enhancing transparency and accountability within the counties: change management should be handled better; the National treasury and Counties should organize regular skills advancement courses on IFMIS, encourage phased implementation and testing of the financial management software. A political class support is mandatory at county levels to ensure good financial management and hence reduced corruption.

Museum Catalogue Record: William Morris’s News From Nowhere

Museum Catalogue Record: William Morris’s News From Nowhere Madeleine Seys (bio) Object: The Utopian Museum Material: William Morris’s News From Nowhere; or, An Epoch of Rest, Being Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance Date: 1890 history The victorian period saw the rise of the museum and the novel as dominant cultural and intellectual forms. Both museums and novels used reason and description to categorize and organize facts and artifacts in order to tell stories, connecting earlier events to the culture and politics of the Victorian period. Novels and museums are, alike, repositories for narrative. In Victorian museum practice, catalogues such as the British Museum’s [End Page 30] Catalogue of Printed Books: Homer (1890) document the provenance, description, and condition of an artifact in constructing a narrative of its history and significance. These categories were codified in museum collection accession practice throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. A similar logic to that which informs the museum catalogue is evident in the structure of the nineteenth-century novel. Here, background information provides a narrative’s history and provenance, build-up utilizes description as a literary technique, the novel’s climax is a complication of that description (as is an artifact’s condition), and its resolution concludes the narrative and assesses the novel’s significance. As Mieke Bal states, “Collecting is an essential human feature that originates in the need to tell stories” (103); the museum and the novel both represent and explore this need. William Morris’s 1890 novel, News from Nowhere, bears witness to the influence of the museum as a cultural site, as a collection, and as a form of storytelling in Victorian literature. Morris presents his novel, subtitled An Epoch of Rest, Being Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance, as a collection of textual artifacts, in the form of chapters, through which he describes and explores a utopian future. The museum is an important literal and symbolic site in News from Nowhere. It is crucial to the novel’s narrative strategy and utopian function and provides a framework for analyzing it. The museum is also a significant cultural site and narrative metaphor in other late-Victorian utopian and dystopian novels, including H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine (1895) and Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett’s New Amazonia (1899). Barbara J. Black’s On Exhibit: Victorians and Their Museums examines the utopian impulse of Victorian collecting culture and how literature responds to this impulse in its representations of the future. She argues that Morris’s museum in News From Nowhere represents a “social criticism targeted at the future of a society committed to imperialism and industrialism” (168). Instead of being a “guarded national treasury, the museum plays back the history of its own institutional inception” (167). In this essay, I use the museum catalogue as a form for exploring Morris’s utopian representation of the Victorian period, taking history, provenance, description, condition, and significance as subheadings to structure my analysis. In doing so, I continue this process of self-consciously examining the museum as an object of and subject for narrative and history. Like Morris, I look at the Victorian period, in this case its literature, through the epistemologies of the museum. As a short form of analysis that explores the connection between objects and narratives, and the significance of the past (provenance) in understanding the present (significance), the museum catalogue record is the ideal form for literary analysis that is attentive to the historical, material, and poetic aspects of the Victorian novel. provenance From the Greek, museum means the “seat of the muses” (Siegel 3); in its modern usage, these muses are material rather than mythic, and the museum [End Page 31] is an institution for the collection, protection, preservation, and exhibition of objects of historical and artistic value (Siegel 3; Maleuvre 9). During the Victorian period, the museum emerged as an object of and a subject for the defining intellectual and cultural activities of collecting, categorization, and exhibition. In the years that have followed, the Victorian period itself has become an object to exhibit in museums, with both institutions and their artifacts functioning as icons of this era. In 1967, Germaine Bazin described...

The “Inevitability of Culture” Today

The article represents a review of the book by A.I. and G.Yu. Demchenko “Milestones. Events. Faces. The Art of Saratov” (Saratov: Saratovtelefilm — Dobrodeya, 2015), devoted to the study of the region’s artistic culture as a holistic phenomenon, in the totality of all branches of art (architecture, graphic art, literary art, musical art, theatre and cinema art). The review reflects structural and conceptual parameters of the book, features of the presentation and analysis of the vast artistic material. The article assesses the publication and exposes its uniqueness and relevance. The emergence of this work leads to reflection on the role of artistic regional studies in the general context of cultural studies in Russia, on the “inevitability” and priority of regional cultural studies in the conditions of the Internet cyberculture development, as on the opposition to the depersonalizing trends, depriving a person of soil identity. The book is also considered, in the context of scientific and educational activities of Doctor of Arts, Honored Art Worker of Russia, Director of the Center for Comprehensive Art Research A.I. Demchenko, as a part of the author’s project “Artistic Treasury of the Volga Region”. Aimed at attracting attention to the spiritual wealth accumulated over four centuries of the region’s existence, this project provides a new look at the country’s culture as a whole, taking into account the contribution to the national treasury of the “infusions” from regional cultural centers.

Procedimiento Inspector y proceso penal. Problemas no resueltos en la doble instrucción de delítos contra la hacienda pública en el Reino de España

En el presente estudio se analizan las relaciones existentes en el derecho positivo español entre la articulación de las instrucciones del procedimiento de regularización de la deuda y el proceso por delito contra la Hacienda Pública. En él se pone de manifiesto que en la normativa que resulta aplicable no se establecen el conjunto de técnicas que de forma precisa articulen los derechos, deberes y garantías que han de observarse en ambos órdenes. En este sentido se analiza el concepto y efectos de la «noticia criminis» en el procedimiento de Inspección tributaria vigente en España; la naturaleza, el contenido y el alcance del traslado del «tanto de culpa» y, la operatividad y sus límites, del derecho a no autoinculparse en el procedimiento de regularización de deudas. Problemas que resultan nucleares en cualquier regulación que se establezca para la articulación de las relaciones entre procedimiento y proceso.

The economic and environmental effects of a carbon tax in South Africa: A dynamic CGE modelling approach

The economic and environmental effects of a carbon tax in South Africa: A dynamic cge modelling approachSouth Africa’s National Treasury released its Carbon Tax Policy Paper in May 2013. The paper proposed a R120/tCO2-equiv. levy on coal, gas and petroleum fuels. Here, we model the possible impacts of such a tax on the South African economy using the computable general equilibrium (CGE) 53-sector model of the University of Pretoria’s Department of Economics. The model shows that the carbon tax has the capacity to decrease South Africa’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by between 1 900MtCO2-equiv. and 2 300MtCO2-equiv. between 2016 and 2035. The extent of emissions reductions is most sensitive to the rate at which tax exemptions are removed. Recycling of carbon tax revenue reduces the extent of emissions reductions due to the fact that economic growth is supported. The manner in which carbon tax revenue is recycled back into the economy is therefore important in terms of the extent of emissions reductions achieved, but not as significant as the influence of different exemption schedules. The model shows the carbon tax to have a net negative impact on South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) relative to the baseline under all exemption regimes and all revenue recycling options assessed. The negative impact of the carbon tax on GDP is, however, greatly reduced by the manner in which the tax revenue is recycled. Recycling in the form of a production subsidy for all industries results in the lowest negative impact on GDP.

Insight into supply chain management in a municipal context

Supply chain management is strategic to the quest for service delivery excellence in South African municipalities. The supply chain journey in South African municipalities started in 2005 with reforms to introduce internationally accepted procurement best practices. The previous system failed the country due to deficiencies and malpractices resulting from the interpretation, implementation and governance of the preference procurement policy. Today (2016), supply chain management has become a talking point on which citizens are raising major concerns and it is perceived as being handled in a way that financially benefits few individuals. Laws and regulations governing municipal supply chain management are intentionally ignored or flouted by municipal officials resulting in corruption, fruitless, wasteful and unauthorized expenditure. In an effort to address these challenges, the National Treasury continuously provides guidance in terms of policy revision, clarity in the provisions of the supply chain management policy, as well as training to supply chain management officials. This article provides an insight into supply chain management practices in a municipal context in South Africa. It highlights the status, challenges and way forward for the implementation of supply chain management in a municipal environment. Keywords: insight, supply chain management, municipality, public procurement, South Africa. JEL Classification: M38

O impacto das ações estratégicas dos governos estaduais no crescimento econômico

Esse trabalho analisa o impacto da estratégia deliberada dos governos estaduais, ao executar os gastos públicos, no crescimento econômico estadual, por meio de dados obtidos na Secretaria do Tesouro Nacional no período de 1999 a 2009. O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar o impacto das ações estratégicas dos governos regionais, na execução dos gastos públicos e sua relação com crescimento econômico. A relevância para a realização desse trabalho é a de fornecer informações que permitam uma discussão sobre a execução dos gastos governamentais em relação aos objetivos estratégicos, permitindo dessa forma identificar e reconhecer como é o comportamento do planejamento em relação ao crescimento econômico de curto e longo prazo, implementados via orçamento anual (LOA). Como ferramenta estatística foi utilizada a configuração de dados em painel. A variável dependente utilizada foi o produto interno bruto privado dos estados (PIBPRIEST), as variáveis independentes utilizadas no modelo foram ano de eleição, às despesas governamentais presentes no orçamento-programa de cada Estado da Federação, representando o que foi consumido pelas ações estratégicas governamentais dentro de suas respectivas funções de gastos e como variável de controle o PIB privado do país (PIBPRIBRA). Os resultados obtidos estatisticamente evidenciam que em sua grande maioria as ações estratégicas governamentais não estão relacionadas com o crescimento econômico, sendo, portanto, ações estratégicas improdutivas.